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Lasso Professional V Released

Posted by pudge on from the now-with-super-bleaching-mega-action dept.

MrGHemp writes "Blueworld announced the release of Lasso V, one of the most popular middleware programs running on Mac web servers. This is a major upgrade from version 3.6.6.2 and the first to work on Mac OS X. There are a variety of new tags, and a really nice implementation of MySQL. This is exciting for the Lasso community, because now we can upgrade our web servers to Mac OS X!" Maybe now we'll see a whole rash of Mac web sites that don't crash! (Sorry, that one couldn't be helped.)

15 comments

  1. Lasso will slowly fade away by Paul+Burney · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm really not trying to start a flame war here, but I think bringing lasso to OS X will slowly put it into retirement.

    Right now, there are a lot of good lasso web developers. However, once they're on OS X, they'll probably try some "really cool application" built with open source tools like PHP or Perl, especailly when they see that some other OS X site uses it.

    It's a very small step from just one PHP app on a box to "well let's just do everything in PHP".

    I went through the same transformation a few years ago when we moved from WebStar on a Mac to apache on Mac OS X Server 1.0. Up until that point we were kludging together solutions in CDML for FileMaker Pro.

    That OS was a nightmare(*shudder*) but it did bring me into the *nix fold and much better programming practices.

    --
    <?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>
    1. Re:Lasso will slowly fade away by hotsauce · · Score: 1

      Your prediction assumes that all web developers will want to 1. learn a new language, and 2. re-write their existing sites.

      While you may want to spend time learning and porting (especially since you describe your old site as a kludge), many developers would rather spend the time creating new content (especially if their existing sites work well).

      Not to mention, the learning and usability curves for Lasso and Perl are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

      --
      Lies about crimes
    2. Re:Lasso will slowly fade away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I do not agree with this. It is pretty convienent to say that once Lasso developers see PHP or Perl, they'll never go back. However, this is far from the truth. There are dedicated developers to the Lasso platform, who did look at PHP and Perl and are using them, but are still using Lasso. Why? Lasso has features which make it stand out from the others, particularly when it comes to ease in coding, ease in security, and ease in installation.

      One needs to look at this in the business perspective and not the programming perspective- will PHP offer better ROI just because it is initially free? Honestly, PHP is a bit more complex to code, which means more hours will be paid for to develop the code.

      I personally tried PHP but have not gotten far into it. I find Lasso (5 not 3.x) more conveinent because I know how to use it and it does the job sufficiently.

      Finally, I wonder, how does changing an OS bring better programming practices? This makes no sense.

    3. Re:Lasso will slowly fade away by Andromeda9 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am one of those Lasso developers, pretty new to the game, that looked at PHP. Not coming from a programming background (yeah, there's lots of us), it was immediately obvious that PHP was way over my head (or I wasn't ready for the challenge, however you want to spin it).

      It was too hairy a ball to get a grip on. With Lasso I can get a grasp of the concepts, DL some code snippets from some of the "better" developers that I have come to know from the beta cycle, and usually get something working in fairly short order. I have found the Lasso Talk list is very user-friendly and supportive, as well, but there's no lack of hard-core coders there.

      But we are NOT looking at this solely as a FileMaker-enabling technology, something that Lasso primarily has been in the past. To do that would be to seriously under-rate Lasso's power. Lasso is on our OS X box, hooking into MySQL databases, and is pretty fast. The security is good, having the ability to protect tables, columns, or individual fields with as much flexibility as you could think of.

      This whole path has allowed me to ease into Unix more or less gracefully, which has allowed me to continue in my chosen career path, doing projects that are interesting and profitable. Four months ago I knew nothing about Unix, had only a modicum of knowledge about Lasso 3, a solid background in DNS, e-mail servers, listservs, and WebStar. Now I have five database-enabled sites up and running. If you're interested, here is one to look at:

      http://db.climbingcentral.com/f_forums.lasso

      Hope this helps somebody out who might be making a decision.

  2. Pudge hates Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems obvious that "pudge" hates Macs, which makes me wonder why he's in charge of the Apple section. Between the "***-for-dummies" and now the "less crashing!" comment, it's apparent he's anti-Mac, so I repeat the question: why is he running apple.slashdot.org?

    1. Re:Pudge hates Macs by X_Caffeine · · Score: 1

      Or maybe he's just realistic about the strengths and failings of the Macintosh platform? I'd far rather read postings from someone who is actually honest about what sucks about Apple (and is equally honest about what is good!) than someone who just wants to blow Steve Jobs like those dorks at Macslash.

      --
      // I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
    2. Re:Pudge hates Macs by bsartist · · Score: 1

      It seems obvious that "pudge" hates Macs

      Damn, but that's funny! You obviously have no idea who Pudge is. He's definitely a Mac Guy. He wrote the only book I know of on MacPerl, and is the current maintainer of MacPerl. I'd be willing to bet that there's an Apple section here, and that Apple stories get posted here because of Pudge, not in spite of him.

      In fact, I suspect that's Slashdot's Dirty Little Secret - it may be served on Linux, but the developers all use OS/X to maintain it. C'mon, Pudge, admit it... you know you'd never give up BBEdit... ;-)

      --
      Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
    3. Re:Pudge hates Macs by krow · · Score: 2

      You are so totally offbase. Pudge is mac bigot, the fellow maitains Mac Perl.
      Hell, he develops Slash on a Mac :)

      --
      You can't grep a dead tree.
  3. Re:FASP ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First Non-Apple Sucks First Post Post

  4. PHP? by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 2

    So how does this product differ from using, say PHP, which already has MySql support and can do Object Oriented classes?

    Not trolling, just curious to know if anyone's used Lasso.

    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
    1. Re:PHP? by georgewad · · Score: 1

      I'm learning it right now-tho I'm a PHP fan-due to 'corporate mandate'. The mySQL administration piece is Very Nice. It allows you to set up your databases, tables, user access permissions (both to the db and web access to the db) add data to the tables, etc. I might end up still using PHP in conjunction with Lasso, when it makes sense to do so (file uploading comes to mind). If Lasso were free (beer or speech) it would be praised highly.

      --
      Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
    2. Re:PHP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Lasso's tag based language has historically been praised for its ability to enable non-programming trained web designers to implement database connectivity and dynamic content logic to their sites. Meanwhile it also had plenty of flexibility for programmers as well.

      The original LDML language is wordy, but it is very straight forward to grasp and be productive in a hurry. It's native support in the language tags for database connectivity often makes up for the wordiness, by greatly simplifying communication with the db. Lasso is very productive language.

      Lasso 5 is a quite a different animal from v3. Many new tags, data constructs, and more customization abilities. Much of the wordiness can be dropped by using a new LassoScript syntax, and the "open source" for database connectors allows for much better database support which will help LP5 grow beyond the limited options available to v3.

      Momentum is a big thing to overcome. If one is already familar with language X, it is unlikely he'll change--especially for people who expect everything to be free. However, Lasso's productivity advantages allows sites to be developed with fewer people in less time. To a beginner or and old-hat, it's an attractive differentiation.

    3. Re:PHP? by LassoDevelopment · · Score: 2, Informative

      I wouldn't put Lasso in the same league as PHP, Lasso competes with the likes of Cold Fusion and Roxen. The contracts that I get involved with are companies looking for a ware that has a company background (someone to blame) element. Also noticed people on here reference Lasso to the Mac community, mabey in the past but Lasso Professional 5 can sit on any of the following combinations: OS X Apache W* 5.1 W2K IIS Apache and the source is open for someone to make their name in making more connectors available. I know that the Linux Red Hat version is coming out soon too, so to say this is a Mac related product is now out of the window! My two cents!